Thursday, July 31, 2008

Sometimes you get really nice surprises when bidding at ebay. One of these days I bought a book for just 1 € - seems nobody else wanted it. I just wanted it to tear the pages out for my collages. (Uuups, I hope none of my books heard this....)This evening I had a real scare. Lesley Riley was offering several Dover books with interesting illustrations for just a couple of dollars. I really wanted these and therefore made my bid. It was only after having done so that I realized that shipping from the US to Germany would be nearly 50 $! (More than double the amount of my bidding) Somehow I had thought that the price had included shipment - stupid me! Those were some very anxious minutes I waited for someone else to outbid me. It did happen at last, but only at the last second - boy was I grateful! So everybody take a good look when buying something at ebay - shipment might be an issue.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Books are something special for me. I love them, I need them, I hoard them. I get nervous when I know there are only about 5 books left I haven't yet read. Seems I am addicted. Now this book is something very special. German readers will surely know it. It is called "Die Häschenschule" which means school for rabbits or rather hares. As a child this was one of my favorite picture books.That is the reason why my mother gave it to me when I was expecting my first daughter. She had been diagnosed with cancer even before my marriage. It was three years later when I was pregnant. I suppose she somehow knew that she would not last long enough. In fact she died about four weeks before my eldest was born. And now, I dismantled this book!I took out all of the pages, I cut them to size, I did a color wash on the inside of the covers....I am stamping onto the pages, gluing things in, writing with gel pens. I gave mother hare some glasses and imported the rabbit herald from "Alice in Wonderland". In fact, I am altering this book. I will include some extra pages with photos from my mother, myself and my eldest daughter, thus showing the way from mother to daughter to mother. I always wanted to make a piece of art in remembrance of my mother without being too sad, too kitschy, too reverently... This might be it.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Our patchwork group - Grünstadt Quilters - has its 25th anniversary today. That is really rather old for a German patchwork group. We will have an exhibition in November. The group was called upon to make a challenge quilt with a K. Fasset- fabric,green Lutradur and a mix of seed beads. The only rules were to include the number 25 any which way and the size of the quilt (which was not to be larger than 60 x 60 cm). This is my quilt.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Went with a friend to see that film. My daughter was exasperated - she thinks this is not something you should invest valuable time in. Well, we liked it very much! And now I found this Blogthing - I had to share it.

You Are Most Like Charlotte!

You are the ultimate romantic idealist

You've been hurt before, but that hasn't caused you to give up on love.

If anything, your resolve to fall in love is stronger than ever.

And it's this feminine optimism that men find most appealing about you.

Monday, July 07, 2008

This is the quote I want to put on the first page of my journal for the class with Sharon: Artists forge their way into the darkness fueled by creativity, leaving rainbows in their wake.With Wordl text can be set up in various colors, fonts and directions which you can see when clicking on the the above.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

One of the exercises for the Studio Journal class was doing a color wheel. Since my last color wheel for City & Guilds was some time ago I painted a new one. I keep forgetting the correct applications for terms like "split complementary", so I decided to enter the key words to the color wheel and glue this into my journal, so I will have them handy. Unfortunately the paper from the journal I bought is not heavy enough to tolerate watercolors. I tried a wash for the first page and the paper buckled and stayed that way even after it dried. I think I will have to glue several pages together, try gesso or glue more heavyweight paper into the journal since I want to have some color experiments in there, too.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Sounds like something to eat, doesn't it? Actually it is something everyone did as a kid, I think: Laying paper upon a structure and then rubbing with a pencil to get the outline and surface. This is one of the exercises we have to do - or rather which are suggested to do - in an online class with Sharon Boggon at joggles.com called Studio Journals. I have been working with a sketch book on and off (lately rather off) and thought that training in a class would perhaps help me to keep up journaling on a more regular basis.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Ever heard of "Zentangle"? This is kind of a philosophy combining doodles and the idea of Zen. You try to fill every piece in a given design with another overall design. This takes time and you are to enjoy the process (live in the here and now). Drawing is done with a very fine Micron pen on exquisite heavy paper. I enjoy this process when I am stuck with an idea or just have no inclination to really work in my studio. You can do this for hours (although my neck starts screaming after a certain time) or just for a few minutes. For the materials needed and for inspiration look up www.zentangle.com

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van Balzer

About Me

I am a textile artist creating mainly art quilts and dabbling in mixed media technique.
Besides I am mother of three adorable grown up kids and happily married to a mathematician. My Chinese sign of the zodiac is the dragon, hence the name dragonquilts for this blog.